Posted on: Monday, June 11, 2001
Editorial
Wong case: More than anyone should endure
If former Bishop Estate trustee Richard "Dickie" Wong did something bad, it better have been a whopper.
Because it is difficult to imagine any other explanation for the extraordinary lengths the state has gone in its efforts to establish a criminal case against Wong for his activities as a trustee.
The state's original criminal charge against Wong (as well as fellow former trustee Henry Peters) was theft, arising out of a 1995 land deal between Bishop Estate and Wong's former brother-in-law, Jeffrey Stone. That case has been thrown out.
But then the state indicted Wong on charges of perjury, saying he had lied to the Grand Jury when he testified about the land deal. In effect, Wong insisted he had not cut some kind of insider deal with Stone on the sale of estate land under the Kalele Kai condominium in Hawai'i Kai.
That perjury charge was thrown out at the Circuit Court level. The state appealed that ruling to the Hawai'i Supreme Court, which has yet to rule on the matter.
But while that first perjury case waits in limbo, the state re-indicted Wong in April on another set of perjury charges arising out of that same Grand Jury testimony.
The attorney general's office said the new indictment is based on different things said to the Grand Jury and different evidence than was used on the first indictment.
Perhaps. But the basic charge remains the same: lying to the Grand Jury in the course of testimony on a case that has long-since been dismissed.
Elemental fairness suggests the state should at least wait until the Supreme Court has ruled in the first case before going back for another bite of the apple. As it now stands, Wong faces legal costs and legal peril in two places at once, all around the same central set of facts.
Wong is a big boy, a player in both political and financial circles. He can no doubt withstand this kind of heat better than most. But no citizen should be forced through this kind of a process by his government.
